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EMMA A. TEMPLE. 



EMMA A. TEMPLE. 



A MEMORIAL 

READ AT THE ANNUAL REUNION OF THE GIRLS' HIGH 
SCHOOL ASSOCIATION, MAY 9, 1888. 



C/ VVU-«,A„yt^ d LiOJ^4^0t.^l-<.rw. * ■ . ■■ ■. 



PRIVATELY PRINTED. 

BOSTON. 



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I am glad to give to these extracts from Miss Temple's 
letters a wider circulation than was possible in manuscript, 
and I have permitted the introductory sketch to accom- 
pany them, at the request of some who wished to preserve 
the whole as a permanent memorial. ^i^S'' )^^ 



IN MEMORIAM. 



Not only was the greater part of Miss Temple's life 
associated with the Girls' High School, but the life of 
the school, during far the greater part of its history, 
has been associated with her. It seems to me there- 
fore but natural that the children of our Alma Mater 
and hers should, on coming home for their annual 
visit, have something to say about one whom they 
all knew more or less, and whose death is their com- 
mon loss. 

I am aware that, owing to her strong individuality, 
there was a wider difference of opinion in regard to 
her than in regard to some other teachers; but I 
am sure no girl was ever in her class, even for a 
brief period, without feeling that she had come in con- 
tact with a nature singularly vigorous, inspiring by 
its own energy, and capable of rousing, if anything 



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could, every dormant faculty in her. And many, I 
know, received a moral impulse even stronger than 
the intellectual, from daily intercourse with one who 
had so manifestly acquired that mastery of self which 
is the first requisite of those who would control others. 
Even the few who sometimes complained of what they 
called her strictness, came at last to see that this was 
but an excrescence upon one of her virtues — a mere 
outgrowth of her uncompromising regard for what 
was right and true. " Truthful and almost sternly 
just" herself, and seeing always a clearly defined 
boundary between right and wrong, she could not 
bear to see it overstepped by those for whom she was 
in any sense responsible. 

But it is not of Miss Temple as a teacher that I am 
to speak to you. In that character you perhaps knew 
her as well as I, and could bear testimony to her re- 
markable clearness of mind, her refined literary and 
artistic tastes, as well as to her power in developing 
the mind and character of her pupils. It is because 
of my intimate relation to her as a friend, that I have 
been asked to tell you some things about her which 
you could not know so well. I wish there were some 
one else to do it, for I know too well the impossibility 



of photographing that many-sided nature, which, how- 
ever, was never capricious or uncertain. I will attempt 
no analysis of her character, but will simply mention 
some of its more marked features, in a familiar and 
personal way, and afterwards illustrate them by ex- 
tracts from her letters. 

My memory of Miss Temple goes back to the time 
when we were both pupils in the school, and I well 
remember seeing for the first time, entering the hall 
at morning exercise, a slight, girlish figure dressed in 
black, the daintily poised head set in a quaint, ruche- 
bordered cap to conceal its bareness. I was told that 
it was Emma Temple ; that she had lost father and 
mother by consumption, and was, herself, just recover- 
ing from a serious illness, during which her head had 
been shorn of its abundant hair. This is my earliest 
recollection of her ; but it was not until we had both 
graduated and become fellow-teachers, she stepping at 
once to the position of teacher without leaving the 
school, that that friendship began, which, deepening 
with the confidences, and strengthening with the expe-^ 
riences of years, was broken only by death. 

Knowing her thus long and intimately, I do not 
hesitate to mention first, as her strongest character-^ 



istic, the intensity and depth of her spiritual nature. 
That she was keenly alive in every part of her being 
— body, mind and spirit — no one could doubt who 
knew her at all ; but few knew so well as 1, how the 
spirit ruled in that realm, and this not arbitrarily, but 
by an acknowledged " divine right." A well-disciplined 
kingdom it was, every power of body and of mind 
being trained to do the bidding of its master. 

It is true the delicately organized body, though 
capable of giving pleasure through every sense, had 
its limitations, and, knowing well her heritage of dis- 
ease, she was compelled to exercise great care in its 
use ; but she understood it so well that she made it 
serve her almost as well as a more robust one would 
have done. Her knowledge of physiology and hygiene 
enabled her to avoid many of " the ills that flesh is 
heir to," and no warning voice of her physical nature 
ever went unheeded. She always had herself " well 
in hand." So have I seen one driving a spirited horse, 
now giving free rein, now curbing and restraining, and 
enjoying all the time the sense of mastery. For she 
had a natural delight in athletic exercise. Those who 
knew her as the first teacher of gymnastics in the 
school, or who were familiar with Dio Lewis's Gymna- 



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sium in the old days, will not forget the lightness and 
grace of her lithe, airy figure, in its pretty costume. 
In surf-bathing and in horseback-riding she especially 
delighted. Often, after a fatiguing day in school, she 
would set off in the late afternoon, at a leisurely pace, 
on some secluded road, and having reached a favorite 
point, would pause to enjoy the stillness and fragrance 
of the woods, the last notes of the thrush, the last 
gleam of sunshine. By this time all care and fatigue 
had vanished, and she was ready for a brisk canter 
home in the deepening twilight, having enjoyed her- 
self, as she would say, " to the top of her bent." There 
is one spot that is forever associated in my memory 
with one of these evenings, and with one of her mo- 
ments of spiritual exaltation. I wish I could recall 
precisely the few words she uttered, in a hushed voice, 
as we gazed upon the valley below us, glorified in the 
light of the setting sun. I know that their reverential 
spirit seemed to lift the whole scene up into an apoca- 
lyptic vision. 

Her mental powers, no less than her physical, were 
under admirable discipline. Her mind was not only 
keen and alert, but it was well trained. She had great 
power of concentration, and was capable of close and 



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long-continued reasoning upon abstract subjects, while 
reflection and memory were her pastimes. These lat- 
ter powers rendered her so independent of circum- 
stances, notwithstanding her extreme susceptibility to 
external influences, that I used sometimes laughingly 
to say that she would be happy alone, on a desert 
island. She certainly had large resources within her- 
self, and "that inward eye which is the bliss of 
solitude." 

And yet no one valued friends more than she 
did. So ardent a nature could not be cold in its 
sympathies or affections. She was even, at times, 
oppressed with a sense of her loneliness. I have 
spoken of her early orphanhood. A brother soon fol- 
lowed her parents, with the same disease. Later, 
another brother, a bright and joyous young man, be- 
tween whom and herself there existed a bond of more 
than ordinary brotherly and sisterly affection. Finally 
the death of her sister left her, for the last four years 
of her life, the sole survivor of her family. She suf- 
fered keenly in these afflictions, but her religious faith 
was strong, and the brave soul did not falter. 

Though homeless for many years, she had strong 
local attachments, and a change of abode always cost 



11 



her a pang. She preferred the country to the city, 
and boarded fifteen years at one place in Dorchester, 
where the chief attractions for her were a field oppo- 
site the house, and a distant view of the Milton Hills. 
What harvests she reaped from that uncultivated field ! 
How she loved those hills in all their changing aspects ! 
One other attraction of this home I must mention. It 
was an apple-tree near her window, into whose billowy 
masses of blossom she delighted to look, as she lay in 
her bed. When, one spring, it failed to put forth blos- 
som or leaf, she mourned its death like that of an old 
friend. 

Her love of nature was, indeed, one of her strongest 
characteristics. There was a good-fellowship about it, 
and, at the same time, a reverence and tenderness, 
that I have seldom seen. This made her a charming 
companion for the country or the seashore. No beauty 
of earth or sea or sky escaped her notice, and nothing 
in nature was beneath her attention. Wordsworth's 
lines about " the meanest flower that blows," might 
well have expressed her sentiment. And yet she 
rarely gathered flowers, and never wantonly ; if she 
plucked them, it was to cherish them and keep them 
fresh in her room. 



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The monotony of her outward Hfe (her inward life 
was never monotonous) was varied by two visits to 
Europe, the first of which it was my pleasure to share 
with her. This was a summer trip, but a lifetime 
of enjoyment was compressed into those few months. 
Her primary object in this trip was to avert threaten- 
ing disease. The second visit was, rather, an indul- 
gence which she felt that she had earned by long labor, 
and, at the same time, a duty that she thought she 
owed herself in order to make the most of life's oppor- 
tunities. On this occasion she spent fourteen months 
abroad, travelling quite extensively, chiefly on the con- 
tinent ; making long stays in Paris and in Rome, and 
extending her travels to Greece, where her enthusiasm 
reached its climax. Beyond that land of poetic 
and historic associations the next step, for her, was 
Heaven. 

With her cultivated tastes and her familiarity with 
history and literature, she was well prepared to profit 
by this long "holiday" — so she called it, though it 
was by no means an idle one. She returned almost 
burdened with the wealth of her experiences, which 
she lived over again and again in those quiet hours in 
which she delighted. 



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One more incident in her life I must briefly mention, 
because it reveals some of her gentler, as well as her 
stronger qualities. 

The summer after her final return from abroad, 
while she was at Mt. Desert, she became somewhat 
interested in a little flaxen-haired, half-clad child, that 
was left to wander all day about the fields and 
wharves, while the mother was away earning the 
scanty means to support her children, the father hav- 
ing been lost at sea. There was something pathetic 
about the little waif, that appealed to Miss Temple and 
drew from her some little kindnesses in the course of 
the summer. Returning to the same place the next 
year, she renewed her interest in the child, and, in the 
course of a year or two, it had gradually come to pass 
that, from clothing her, and then paying her board, 
she had assumed the entire care of the little girl, 
taking her to her heart and home as if she were her 
own. Few can know the self-sacrifice which this in- 
volved. Henceforth, day or night, in vacation or in 
school-time, she was never free from care. But love 
made the burden light, and I think she found the 
greatest satisfaction of her life in lavishing this love, 
and care upon her little Milicent. 



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This is but a meagre sketch for so rich a nature, 
and I turn to Miss Temple's letters, hoping that in 
her own words you may catch some glimpses of those 
finer qualities that elude description. 

I find it hard to select from a voluminous cor- 
respondence, every letter of which has its special 
value and charm. I have been tempted to give you 
graphic descriptions of scenes and incidents, which I 
know would interest you, but I have passed them by, 
seeking only to illustrate the varied tastes of the 
writer, and the natural enthusiasm which gave such 
zest to her life — in short, to show you her, rather 
than what she saw. 

My first selection is from a letter describing a visit 
to Stoke Pogis, the scene of Gray's Elegy : 

After leaving the cars we took an open carriage for a drive 
of two or three miles, principally througl^ a winding avenue 
under beautiful English elms, which met above and let the 
sunlight sift down in flecks and bars of yellow gold, touch- 
ing here the dark trunk of a tree, there some bright wayside 
flower ; above, the trees were full of it, and below, bright 
bands here and there across the road threw back their light 
to meet the descending rays. The vistas forward and back- 
ward were charming, and when we came to the open road 
the views were very beautiful. The verdure is now like that 
of our early June, and the atmosphere is filled with moisture, 



15 



so that a blue haze draws a half veil over the distance, mak- 
ing the effect somewhat like that of our Indian summer. 
Every tree had space enough in which to grow symmetrical 
and in which to show its symmetry, and stood in aristocratic 
self-possession in the midst of its domain of sunsliine and 
of shade. 

We drew up at a gateway from which a footpath leads to 
Gray's monument. It is a sarcophagus on a lofty pedestal, 
and bears for inscriptions lines from the Elegy and from the 
Ode on Eton. The path leads on, over the softest of turf 
and the greenest of fields, to the sacred spot. A silence fell 
over us as we neared the churchyard. No one Avanted to 
speak or be spoken to ; it was the effect of ' the solemn still- 
ness ' that all the air ' holds.' 

Here I must say that since visiting Stoke I have been 
surprised at the beautiful propriety of every epithet — almost 
of every word, of the Elegy. I cannot conceive how it was 
possible to embody in words, so perfectly, the very sphit and 
feehng of the scene. I wish there were some word corre- 
sponding to the full meaning of incarnation to express what 
I mean. The poem is not beautiful only, it is beautifully 
true, and I cannot but think that the change of a word 
would be a departure from accuracy, as well as from beauty. 

A narrow gravelled path leads up through the church- 
yard and around the church. All is in miniature — much 
smaller than I had expected; but all is there. The turf 
heaves in many a mouldering heap ; the holy texts are 
sprinkled about the humble stones ; the ivy-mantled tower 
looks as if it might be the secret bower of the moping owl ; 
the yew tree spreads its wide branches over the tombs and 
graves of the villagers ; the air is full of a peculiar quiet 



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wliicli no words describe so well as 'solemn stillness.' The 
very spirit of peace reigns there. 

I cannot tell you how deep was the satisfaction which this 
visit gave me. I think I know and feel every delicate shade 
of thought in the Elegy, and fit seemed like coming to the 
fountain head of poetry to feel the influence of the quiet 
churchyard just as it is reflected in the poem. I think more 
and more that the true poet is the man who sees and can 
tell the truth ; many men can see and speak half truths ; 
but the essential truth of anything is rarely spoken. Gray 
has spoken it about this lovely, secluded, still spot. 

The following extract from an account of her visit 
to the scene of the battle of Marathon shows that she 
was not less interested in history than in literature : 

Our road was, as nearly as possible, the same as that 
which the Athenians took, when ihej marched out to meet 
the Persians, and you can easily conceive that every step of 
the way was to me full of food for reflection and fuel for 
enthusiasm. For several miles after leaving the city, the 
Acropolis was in sight, that crown of Athens, now despoiled 
of its jewels ; at length the shoulder of Mt. Lycabettus hid 
it from view. Somewhat as it looked to us must it have 
looked to the Athenian patriots, when they cast a backward 
glance at the city they were marching to defend ; for then 
the crown was not set with its jewels ; only a few small tem- 
ples had been built, and those were not the glorious buildings 
that were erected after the Persian wars. .... 

When Marathon, with its plain and shores came in sight, 
I felt that I was looking on one of the few spots of earth 



that have witnessed deeds that have turned the course o 
history. There was the great mound, raised where the strife 
waxed hottest, to the memory of those who fell for their 
country ; there was the beach where the Persians landed, the 
swamp in which their cavalry became entangled ; there was 
the mountain against which the Greeks formed their line of 
battle, and from whose lower slopes they rushed impetuously 
upon their enemies, astonisliing them with the force of their 
charge ; there, too, was the tomb of Miltiades, the hero of 
the battle, who died years afterwards, and was buried here 
as an especial honor. It was delightful to find the place 
nearly as destitute of human habitations as it was on the 
day of the great fight ; it was so easy to fight the battle over 
again, when we found all things just as they were nearly 
twenty-four hundred years ago. I am glad that there is still 
nothing to say as a description of the place but what Byron 
has said, 

' The mountains look on Marathon 
And Marathon looks on the sea.' 

The place is beautiful, aside from its noble associations. 
There are the bright Greek waters, so unlike all other 
waters; the islands of the jJEgean within short sailing dis- 
tance ; the mountains all about ; the pretty plain ; the soft 
air ; the quiet and repose of the whole scene ; and when one 
adds its name — Marathon, I am sure one has said more 
than enough to finish the charm. I feel that this day was. 
the climax of all my hopes and ambitions in the way of 
travel. I should like to see Egypt and the Holy Land, but 
at present I am full with the knowledge that my eyes have 
looked upon Marathon and my feet have stood upon its. 
glorious soil. 



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You can hardly imagine how alive the history of Greece 
is to me now, as well as much of the daily life of the ancient 
Athenians. I almost think I have heard Demosthenes or 
Pericles from the Pnyx, and have walked in the Panathenaic 
procession, and have sat all day in the theatre, in the open 
air, with the sea and the shore and the islands for the scen- 
ery of one of the grand tragedies of ^Eschylus. 

And all these things went on in such a little space. I 
never got over being astonished at that. We are apt to 
imagine that great deeds and noble lives must have a great 
arena ; but here I was reminded that real grandeur and no- 
bility have an upward, not an outward reach. 

She had the rare pleasure of witnessing a unique 
national /(^te at Megara. After describing in detail, the 
next day, the beautiful costumes and the marvellous 
dances, she continues : 

To-day I ask mj^self ' What was I, and where was I yes- 
terday ? ', and I still seem to be on some high pinnacle of 
joyous outlook, whence the world appears one whirling 
pageant of perpetual gayety — a kaleidoscope of beauty and 
pleasure. Not a moment, from five o'clock in the morning 
till half past nine at night, that was not a separate romance. 

We had a long two hours' sail back, the last part of the 
way being under the stars and in water that glowed mth its 
own radiance. O, that wonderful water ! It, alone, should 
evoke poetry from the soul of a clod, even. I could believe 
— I can hardly help believing — in the living soul with 
which the Greeks endued all forms of matter. Every wave 
shone with a lambent light, its whole surface softly glowing, 



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and showing a bright point of light at its summit, like ' a 
love-lighted watch-fire.' The oars of our boat chpped into 
pools of silver and gold and came out beams of light. I put 
my hand into the water, almost expecting that it would be 
gently grasped by one of those beautiful spirits that must 
haunt such loveliness. 

There was something not only in the climate, but in 

the spirit of sunny Italy, as well as of Greece, which 

she found peculiarly harmonious with her nature. Of 

Italian skies she says : 

You will perhaps wonder if I find them to surpass our 
own. No : not in depth of color, whether at high noon or at 
sunset. Here there is the most exquisite harmony of soft 
colors ; I have not yet seen anything like the flaming 
glory of our sunsets, but there is still something that wins, 
captivates and subdues the heart, in the soft effulgence (no 
better word occurs to me) of light, that floods the heavens 
and the earth in Italy. The light and color of the sky 
seem to penetrate — not simply to touch, the earth, and 
to make it one with themselves. There are at least two 
things — and I will not think how many more — that I shall 
grievously miss when I leave Italy ; they are color, and flow- 
ing water. 

On the subject of art a volume might be compiled 
from her letters. Her criticisms on painting and sculp- 
ture, while they show a refined and cultivated taste, 
are always unconventional. Of the Sistine Madonna 
she says : 



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Glorious as the picture is, it did not speak to me as pow- 
erfully as I had expected. I had often had the feeling that 
I would cross the ocean to look upon that picture, and I went 
to it with feelings of almost devotion. But my heart was 
not touched, as I expected it would be. The more I saw the 
picture, the more wonderful it seemed, but the first visit did 
not reveal as much of Heaven as I had expected to receive. 
I think the reason was that I did not find unity in the pic- 
ture at first, and when I did find it, I did not sympathize 
with it. I want the one great surprising, sweet thought, 
expressed in the eyes of the child, and, by sympathy, in 
those of the mother, too, to rest the one, undisturbed, all- 
pervading expression of the picture. The two figures of the 
pope and St. Barbara distracted me, as well as the green 
curtains in the corners of the picture. The curtains are a 
blemish, I think, and the secondary figures are so beautifully 
done that my eye wandered to them when I did not want to 
think of them. There is a meaning to these figures which I 
think I begin to understand, and when I do so fully, I shall 
be happier about it. It is an exquisite, wonderful creation, 
but complex in signification, whereas I had thought it the 
expression of a single, quickly comprehended feeling. It is 
broader and deeper than that, and I shall grasp it, I think. 
Already, in writing this, it begins to grow more luminous. 

[Here follows a full interpretation of it all, as if she 
had suddenly caught the whole idea.] 

Referring to Michael Angelo's mystical statues for 
the tombs of the Medici, called Day, Night, Dawn, and 
Twilight, she says : 



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They seem to me to show the weird, sad imagination of 
a melancholy giant, and I confess myself unable to interpret 
them, in the short time which I had with them. In fact I 
doubt if I ever could interpret them ; there must have been 
a hidden thought, or still more, a hidden feeling, that strove 
to express itself, or else to keep itself from expression, I do 
not know which, in the touches given to these marbles. All 
is sad here : Day and Dawn do not spring into being and 
action with joy and strength ; Twilight and Night do not lay 
aside being and action with the gladness and satisfaction 
that come from a sense of work well done and successfully 
done. I felt like sighing while I was in the presence of 
these mute expressions of some great disappointment. 

One cannot enjoy Michael Angelo as one enjoys Raphael. 
The latter is all joy and sunshine and grace and sweetness, 
and not without high thoughts, which he has embodied in 
his best pictures of Christ and Mary. No mean soul could 
have conceived liis Transfiguration, in which the glories of 
Heaven are almost revealed to mortal sight. 

After describing The Last Supper, by Leonardo da 
Vinci, she adds : 

Six or eight artists were studying it, and copying the 
whole or parts. One head of Christ that stood on an 
easel touched me more than any or all the pictures I have 
seen in all the Galleries of Europe. The artist must him- 
self have been a genius to have so felt his way back to 
the conception of the great artist. I saw some of the ladies 
wipe the tears from their eyes as they stood before it, and 
some of the gentlemen turned quickly away after a mo- 



22 



ment's look. I returned to it again and again, and wept 
before it, and if I had been alone, I should, I have no doubt, 
have fallen down on my knees. It drew me with a most 
extraordinary power. I felt like selling all that I had to 
buy it. 

The artist was there, and though he understood neither 
French nor English, I succeeded in making him understand 
that I wanted to know his name, and he gave me his card. 
More than anything I ever saw or heard, this picture spoke 
of infinite love and infinite sorrow; it was a revelation. 
What must the original have been, then? Even now, in 
its sad decay, it is powerful ; the colors are almost gone, 
but the forms speak. 

Do you not think that I am accumulating a storehouse 
of beautiful and helpful things — a fund from which to 
draw, however and wherever I may be placed ? Even now, 
I dream of saints and angels and Madonnas, and wake with 
my mind full of pleasant and beautiful impressions. Last 
night it was St. Francis who appeared to me, with his calm 
and glorified face, just as Murillo has painted him. My 
hope is that I can use these treasures in some way for some 
people. The earth seems to grow more beautiful every day, 
and to be fuller of means. 

Without any technical knowledge of music, she was 
very susceptible to its influence. Of that at the Rus- 
sian church in Paris she writes : 

I have no words for it. When I hear it I am uncon- 
scious of bodily sensations, and seem to be only a part of the 
music. The soft passages seem to draw one's soul out into 



23 



space, and the strong, triumphant parts almost make one feel 
faint. Then the crescendos and diminuendos are like balm, 
and the whole is like Heaven. You know there is no instru- 
ment, and yet the accord is perfect, and the bass is managed 
so admirably that there is a strong body to the effect, without 
one's ever noticing what gives it. It is the most perfectly 
balanced and harmonious singing I ever heard. 

I should not do for a musical critic, you see, but I don't 
know but that Ifeel the music quite as much as if I could 
draw upon a stock of tecluiical phrases to express my satis- 
faction. When I was conscious of anything this morning I 
was wishing you were listening to the service with me. The 
style of the music is different from any other that I have had 
the good fortune to hear. It is purely devotional, and there 
is not the slightest apparent effort to produce a sensation ; at 
the same time it is more effective than it would be if effect 
were aimed at. Milton's lines, 

' Rose, like an exhalation, with the sound 
Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet,' 

describe, or rather, contain the feeling of such music, that 
seems not to be made, but simply to he. Do not tliink me 
extravagant ; really there is nothing like it, I believe, this 
side Heaven. 

The Passion Play, at Oberammergau, was a rich spir- 
itual experience to her. She says : 

I went feeling as if I were going up to Jerusalem on one 
of the last days of the great feast, and I endeavored to make 
the occasion to myself what it is to the peasants who cele- 
brate it. 



24 



The scenes that were the most deeply moving were the 
parting of Christus from his mother, the washing of the dis- 
ciples' feet, and the Crucifixion. The tone in which the 
words ' Mutter, meine mutter,' were several times uttered in 
the first of these scenes, was so tender, the accompanying 
gesture was so touching, so reverent, so dignified, that one 
could feel one's self and everybody around both melted and 
strengthened by the scene. 

The washing of the disciples' feet was a living sermon ; 
a lesson of humility taught by one who was, in his humility, 
most perfectly dignified. The hush — more profound than 
ever before — that fell on the audience and held it during all 
this scene, was most impressive. Really, it was as if Christ 
himself were before us, and we were in Jerusalem, in that 
room with him on the night of his betrayal. I am sure I 
understand now better than I ever did before,what the union 
of perfect nobility and dignity with perfect meekness aud 
humility, is. The life of Clirist on earth has been illumin- 
ated for me by this and other scenes in this wonderful 
drama. 

I must make one more extract from this long and 
interesting letter, merely to show how every avenue 
to her soul was open. 

The proscenium is entirely ' out of doors,' so that wher- 
ever one sits, there is nature for the background and the 
framing of all that goes on, on the stage. The blue sky and 
the clouds, the everlasting hills and the green valley with the 
river winding through it ; these are the adjuncts and the aids 



to the scenes on the stage, and they lend a touch of reality 
to the whole performance. ' The lilies of the field,' the birds 
flying in and out and singing, or even hopping about on the 
proscenium, the lowing of cows, the occasional sound of a 
child's voice in the meadows, the tinkle of the blacksmith's 
hammer, in the distance — all these and other sights and 
sounds helped the illusion, for the life and death of Christ 
were consummated among the daily events in the life of the 
common people. 

But lest I give too serious an impression of Miss 
Temple's character, here is something in a gayer 
spirit. The scene is the Temple of Mercury, at Baiae. 

It is a perfect dome, barring some holes, large and little, 
from which the masonry has fallen. I think the apertui-e in 
the top was once round and intentional, like that in the Pan- 
theon. Thi-ough all the holes, intentional or unintentional, 
vegetation peeps, making green borders and fringes, and 
sending down long pendants to ornament the empty interior. 
Can you see this great dome standing on a low wall, grand 
and sombre, with the gay light of heaven streaming in here 
and there ' tlu-ough rifts that time has made,' and nature 
frolicking over it in joyous defiance of its solemn gloom ? 
Well, that temple pretty nearly saw me transformed into a 
faun or some other wild creature of fable. I believe the 
spirits of the woods were abroad that day and that they 
almost wrought upon me the charm that used to make beings 
of their own kind out of men and women. 

Some women came into the temple and danced for us the 
tarantella. When I had looked at them a few minutes, I felt 



26 



my feet begin to move, and I danced where I stood, hardly 
knowinsf it. One of the women danced forward towards me 
and held up her arms as if to invite me to be her partner. I 
sprang into the ring, took some castanets, and danced with 
the gayest, feeling like a spirit of air, and perfectl}^ intoxi- 
cated with the motion. The perfect abandonment of the 
scene, the place, the peasants, the time so well marked by the 
tambourine, the jovial sound of the castanets, the — I don't 
know what of fascination in the moment, made me do it — 
made it impossible to help doing it. Go and read the chap- 
ter in The Marble Faun, in wliich the dance in the Borghese 
Gardens is described. I never before believed such extrava- 
gance possible. 

Almost every page of her letters is illumined by 
some chance beam of her brightness ; as when she 
strolls along the shore at Naples, " now leaning over 
the sea-wall to catch a bit of spray, and glorying in the 
cool wind and dash — literal and figurative — of the 
scene." On an Alpine excursion she says " the air was 
so exhilarating that it seemed to make wings grow all 
over me." A propos of a ramble among the lanes 
and byways of that part of old London called the City, 
with one who knew them well, she says, " I was de- 
lighted to the ends of my toes." 

Even the annoyances of travel were transmuted into 
pleasures, by the alchemy of her sunny spirit. Set 



27 



upon, in a narrow street in Rome, by a swarm of little 
beggar girls, who almost tore her clothing from her in 
their persistence, she says : 

I stood still (perforce), and looked straight into their 
handsome eyes and laughed back at them ; they did make a 
wild and singular picture, and I should like the portraits of 
half a dozen of them as they stood with their heads thrown 
back, dark eyes full of light, hair unkempt and black as their 
eyes, and hands, when not clutching me, thrown about in 
vehement gesticulation. I think we might have become very 
friendly, but just when they began to discover that I was not 
angry with them, but only amused, a sharp voice from a 
neighboring doorway^ called out to them to ' begone ' and 
let me alone, and they fluttered away in a twinkling, like a 
flock of wild birds, as they were. 

Ill, among strangers, she writes : 

This is the first trouble of the chest I have had since I left 
home ; it seems to be passing off well, but the doctor and I 
had a good fight with it. I am sure it is worth being ill a. 
Httle, to discover so much goodness, and to find that people 
of all nations are at bottom equally good. The kindness, the 
Providential help I have received, have been wonderful. 

Of course I cannot quote those personal passages 
which reveal the warmth of her affection, but there is 
something in every letter to show that her heart is 



28 



loyal to home and friends. She dreams of them and 
of school — " almost wishes she could make the sun 
stand still" over those she loves, till she comes back. 
" Such kind, good people as I have met !" she says, 
" What a pity to lose them all — at least for this earth 
— so soon ! But I am coming to others as kind and 
good, and more proved than they." 

As the time of her return draws near, she writes : 

I begin now to cast about mthin myself to consider what 
my summer has really given me that will profit me solidly. 
If it does what my other journey did, that is, if it makes me 
better able to endure ills of all sorts, by giving me higher 
hopes and a wider life, I shall be content ; if it should make 
me restless, I should never cease to regret that I have enjoyed 
so much, and I do pray that all the beauty that has entered 
into my life this summer may sometime enable me to see 
even the commonest and plainest mode of living — if neces- 
sary — transfigured by a vision that reaches far beyond the 
present and the material. 



At a regular meeting of an association of Boston 
High School teachers, which occurred May 12, 1887, 
the day after Miss Temple's death, the following trib- 
ute was paid to her memory. 

On the roll of High School teachers there are few names 
that have stood longer, or have a more familiar sound, than 
that of Emma A. Temple. 

Pleasant to the ear, it recalls a light and airy figure, a 
countenance bright with intelligence, a presence full of life ; 
these were apparent to all. But to those who knew her they 
were but the outward expression of a nature more than ordi- 
narily endowed with vitaUty ; a keen and thoroughly disci- 
plined mind ; a refined and cultivated taste ; a heart warm 
and generous ; a soul, the beauty and intensity of whose life 
was a perpetual inspiration to those who knew her best. 

Thus gifted and trained, she possessed rare qualifications 
for the work to which her life was devoted ; and it is impos- 
sible to estimate the influence she has exerted during all 
these years, in awakening the mind, in cultivating the taste, 
and developing the character of her pupils. 

While we beheve that such a work is practically without 
end, we mourn that we can no longer count her among our 
fellow-teachers, and we desire to record oui. sense of the loss 
we have sustained in her death. 



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